survey for busines plan project

[FOX_111]

Originally Posted by Penguin

Let the man open his field, you really don't always have to be so negitive.

I think it's good to see people trying new things and actually applying themselves.

Good luck and I hope you suceede.

Make no mistakes, I'm all for a new field, even if it's too far from where I live to attend. I'm just realistic. People that know me know that if something similar open up in my erea, I'm among the first to go help if needed.

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Here we play indoor at paintball fields during the winter. Once every week or at every 2 week minimum. If the place would be airsoft only, I'd say I'd be there more than one night a week depending on my schedule.

If the place is great, I'd pay up to 20-25$ for the time we spend there. (4 to 8h)

[thephenom]

One thing I must emphasized though, if you are running the place all year around, try to have it near city centers so that roads are plowed during the snowy winter. If it's in Toronto, I'm all for it, in fact I'll pay more since it saves us all gas when gas is so damn expensive now a days.

[Russianboy]

Good luck to you, I hope it go's threw for you.

Man, you guy's have indoor place's in canada. If some one did that in georgia they would make a killing.

[Brian McIlmoyle]

1. dont believe anyone who says "dude I'm so there"
Of the people who said that about TTAC3 .. say 60 or 80 people.. I think I have seen maybe 10 of them since we opened. A great many of people talk about playing airsoft... very few actually do it.

2. you better have lots of money... here are the numbers

Say you want a good sized space.. I have about 4000 square feet.. and it is small so double that to 8000... you are in Barrie so i will halve the cost of the space from toronto rates.

to say $8.00 a square foot per year.. $64000.00 in rent now add insurance .. say $5000.00 now lets heat the place and keep the lights on $10000.00 a year. Add another $6000 for start up and renovations.. year 1 costs are $85000.00

So that is $ 232 dollars a day to just open the doors.. you have not paid yourself yet. it is unreasonable to think you will be open every day,, so lets tak one day a week off.. now we are up to $272 a day Say you charge $15 per player you need 18 players a day

Most people will come play maybe on average 6 times a year .. some much more.. some once.. so average 6 times year.. once every 2 months.. so you need a pool of 1000 players within 1 hour of your facility to support you.

I doubt that there are 1000 active airsofters in Ontario.. let alone within 1 hour of your place.

So..... the numbers don't lie...

now if you want to make a living and add an employee or 2 add $60000.00 .. oh and add another $20000.00 for taxes.
so now you need 1600 players...

If you put in a "pro shop" and charge a 300% markup on everything or are laundering drug money...well then maybe you can make a go of it.

The other thing you could do is require that people use your BBs and charge 5 cents a bb and ban the use of lowcap mags and require full auto fire only. Then you may make enough from that to pay yourself a poverty level wage.

I do alright... I average about $600 a month from TTAC3 .. which is about 9.6% of the total expenses of FACT... but it costs me..personally about 40 hours labour a month for which I receive $0.00 for... I normally bill out at $250 an hour... so it is clearly not about making money for me.....

So.. the point... go ahead and do it... but don't do it to make money.. you won't .. but you will have a great deal of fun..

[Brian McIlmoyle]

Originally Posted by thephenom

One thing I must emphasized though, if you are running the place all year around, try to have it near city centers so that roads are plowed during the snowy winter. If it's in Toronto, I'm all for it, in fact I'll pay more since it saves us all gas when gas is so damn expensive now a days.

Really? you're all for it... well come on down.. there is a place in Toronto.

[Russianboy]

Just to add this, If you say had some land. You could make some kind of a barn and put a CQB field in it.

Unless airsoft in canada is like airsoft in japan you will only lose money.

But if you had some land and say $20,000(US) I can see some one makeing a indoor field. I don't know if you could make a liveing off of it but I think it could pay for it's self.

[Captain Tenneal]

Xtreme Tactics is the facility in Manitoba.

www.xtreme-tactics.com

Great place to play, IMO. Keep in mind, that the facility runs year round (highest attendance probably during the Winter months), and there are usually groups of at least 20 players going down for games each saturday/sunday (and there are usually plenty of games organized throughout the week) with plenty of dropins as well. It is situated near the airport, but still well within city limits, so players can easilly get there.

It is frankly, a bit more open to the public as they just rent AEG's out to about probably 75%+ of the players there, so they can go 'weekend warrior' without risking a massive investment into the sport.

[Brian McIlmoyle]

[QUOTE=Captain Tenneal]Xtreme Tactics is the facility in Manitoba.

www.xtreme-tactics.com



yes... and it is $18 for $45 minutes of game play if you have your own gear and averages $25 for rental and 45 minutes of play.
so lets say average per person is $21.00 and it takes 1 hour to gear up and play your 45 minutes so you need 31 person hours per day to generate $200000.00 revenue a year... not impossible at those numbers..

but still the basic rule of thumb to start a ground up venture like this.. have backing for 2 years expenses lined up before you open the doors..
so you need $300000.00 to $400000.00 in cash.. or good credit to start up.

[MadMax]

Brian has the advantage of offering other billable services at his facility. It's difficult to do enough airsoft business to pay for the high rent/property tax rate in Toronto.

You either have to develop a business which can profitably occupy your space on a full time basis, or develop other business to pay for the time that your space is not generating airsoft revenue.

Luckily, Brian has staff and airsoft customers who enjoy playing at the conscious hours of a bat. Leaves time for the normal people who form the meat and potatoes of his biz. I'm glad that it works out so well. I'm pretty sure that airsoft nights don't come very close to paying the larger bills. A nice hit of cash, but not enough to run a full time biz on, so Torontonian airsofters are lucky that FACT has a good business base to share facilities for airsoft nights.

[Brian McIlmoyle]

and taking TTAC3 to a larger venue.. with a dedicated airsoft only area is still on the horizon.

The issue is of course to be TTC accessable but still get a large enough space to do everything we want to.

The other thing is to create a sufficient client base to make the leap.. I say create because that is what we are doing. The majority of people who are regulars or members are either new to airsoft.. and indoctrinated at TTAC3 or people who dropped out of the community some time ago and are just returning now.. and like what we are offering.

As I said... of the 80 or so people who said.. "Dude.. I'm so there.. I'll play every week!!" 10% ever showed up.. and 5 became members. so the "community" can't be counted on to support anything.. we see this also in the repeated startup and failure of various fields over the past years.

Talk don't pay the bills.

It is an unfortunate truth that the south Ontario Airsoft demographic is as a class young.. and poor.. and not the best client base.

A viable business model for an airsoft only facility has to have in it Corporate Functions.. team building events.. and, idealy professional training users as well to provide a good piece of the revenue.
TTAC3 has had a bit of success in attracting some corporate use.. but the professional training aspect still eludes us... although irons are in the fire in that regard.

[deep in the bush]

all of this is very helpful..i thank you for your input and do any of you mind if i contact you for future advice?

ditb